Terror scare in Piccadilly Circus: Two linked vehicles, two explosive devices
Scroll for updates.
3:48pm Eastern update. Peter Clark, head of anti-terrorist command, is giving a press conference to announce the discovery of the second explosive device and second vehicle. Similar materials found in second car as in first Mercedes–fuel, “substantial quantity of nails.”
3:31pm Eastern update. New developments…2nd explosive device found, also in Mercedes…Accomplice of AQ henchman Barot suspected in car bomb; tried to detonate twice
1:15pm Eastern. The manhunt is on; the car bomb has been dismantled. Analysis from ThreatsWatch.
I wonder if these guys had anything to do with it. From June 21:
UK Minister of State for Security, Counter Terrorism, and Police Tom McNulty [official profile] told Parliament Thursday that an Iraqi suspect subjected to a UK government control order [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] is believed to have absconded [statement] Monday evening, making him the seventh UK terror suspect to have disappeared while under the controversial measure authorized by the Prevention of Terrorism Act [text]. McNulty said the individual, who cannot be identified pursuant to an anonymity order, has been under a control order since November 2005 and has been subjected to the strictest controls, adding that the government was forced to relax the control order following legal setbacks in the courts
11:16am Eastern. Police robot searching another suspect car near Hyde Park.
We’re nearly the second anniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London. And now, another terror scare. One rigged car has been discovered near a nightclub. At least one other suspect vehicle has closed down Park Lane. Fox News is reporting that police have stopped an open top bus there.
Question: Could this be related to Rushdie rage?
And here’s a reality check for anti-Bush, anti-Blair moonbats:
One of the great delusions of our time is that once Blair, in the UK case, and Bush, in the American one, stepped down from office the terrorist threat would disappear. The news that a car bomb attack was foiled in London last night illustrates just how wrong this belief was. Although, the fact that the vast bulk of planning for the 9/11 attacks was done during the Clinton presidency should have shown people how wrong-headed this idea was in the first place.
We do know jihadis never rest. Neither does Allahpundit, who has a massive round-up on the news from London of the first bomb-packed car–whose trunk was reportedly filled with nails–found smoking near Piccadilly Circus. “International elements” are suspected:
This type of car bombing plot is typical of other British Jihadist car bomb plots in the past, including both the July 2005 bomb plots, and the Dhiren Barot Jihadist group bomb plots.
— In July 2005, a number of bombs and components, some packed with nails to cause death and maximum injury, were recovered from a car parked by the July 7 bombers at Luton station.
— British Jihadist Dhiren Barot pleaded guilty to plotting a series of attacks, including detailed plans to explode limousines packed with gas cylinders, explosives and nails after leaving them in underground London parking garages or hotels.
The Times of London reports: Police expected Baghdad-style attack.
Jeffrey Imm at The Counterterrorism Blog has more:
Police said they had no warning of an attack. “The police did not have any advance intelligence of this which is worrying,” said Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland. “They will be concerned there might be other devices in the area or elsewhere in central London because if it is al-Qaeda one of their characteristics is to set off coordinated devices.”
This came on the second day of Gordon Brown’s role as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who has urged Britons to remain vigilant following the discovery.
Authorities are calling on citizens to remain vigilant:
Britain’s new home secretary, Jacqui Smith called an emergency meeting of top officials, calling the attempted attack “international terrorism.”
“We are currently facing the most serious and sustained threat to our security from international terrorism,” she said afterward. “This reinforces the need for the public to remain vigilant to the threat we face at all times.”
Police planned to examine footage from closed-circuit TV cameras in the area, Clarke said, hoping the surveillance network that covers much of central London will help them track down the driver of the rigged Mercedes.
More on the prior “gas limos” plot:
British police investigating a car bomb, packed with petrol, gas cylinders and nails, found in London on Friday said the incident echoed the “Gas Limos Project”, a major al Qaeda plot foiled in 2004.
Convicted Islamist militant Dhiren Barot, who was jailed last year, admitted he had been planning to explode gas and explosives packed into limousines or other large vehicles in underground car parks in co-ordinated attacks across Britain.
Details of the plan, known as the “Gas Limos Project”, were found on a laptop computer during a search in Pakistan, and were thought by police to have been compiled to present to senior al Qaeda leaders for a proposed attack.
Peter Clarke, head of London’s Counter Terrorism Command, agreed there were some apparent similarities between Barot’s scheme and the gas-fuelled car bomb defused on Friday.
“In the Barot case, sometimes referred to as Operation Rhyme, we saw reference to vehicles being filled with gas or fuel in order to create an explosion,” Clarke told a news conference.
“So obviously we are aware of that but at this stage it’s far too soon to draw any conclusions.”
Details on the computer outlined exactly how such an attack would be carried out and estimated there would be “hundreds” of casualties. The project had even been costed at 60,000 pounds ($120,000). “Since in much of the Western world it is not always possible/feasible to obtain real destructive ingredients e.g. common explosives, from the very beginning the project was based on being an improvised destructive device, hence the choice of gas,” the plan said.
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More reasons for the United States to enforce the Laws we have on the books and secure our borders.
This problem won’t be solved and we have no chance of defeating this enemy until we have the courage to confront reality. We need to stop referring to a “tiny minority” of “radicals”, and open our eyes to the fact that this “religion” has a playbook that encourages murder…
I’m sure this is just a fearmongering scare tactic by Bu$hitler.
(/sarcasm off)
From what I read at the DU you read, this is either the Bush/Blair cabal sending a message to the new PM Brown, or strange timing. I am awaiting the reason why they are questioning it. Probably for Bush’s loss over shamnesty, or because he refuses to submit to the Defeatocrat subpeopna’s.
I thought the war on terror was a bumper sticker thing. Could somebody get John Edwards on the phone to explain this away? By bumper sticker, does Edwards mean the bumper sticker on the car bomb full of nails parked in downtown London outside the club full of women on Ladies Night? I’m horribly confused by all this. Horribly confused.
Keep in mind that the #1 name for boys born in the UK is…Mohammed.
So either the UK opens its eyes and puts a stop to the jihad already infesting the country, or they fold up shop and turn into Londonstan.
The options seem pretty clear-cut to me: embrace Islam fully, or be blown to bits by car bombs.
Also, did anyone see this piece of absolute garbage by the UK’s Time Out magazine…[Ed.: Please hyperlink and limit excerpts]
Very scary. Especially in light of this latest terror report.
I guess the Dems are right, it is just a bumper sticker slogan!
I’ll explain. Bush uses the phrase “war on terror” to justify the neocon campaign against Arabs, but in truth he is rather indifferent to terrorism at home, as we can see by his thwarting of any efforts at border security and his support of politically correct immigration, both of which are bringing in God-knows-how-many dangerous customers from Moslem countries. Cheap labor for business cronies is his primary agenda and anti-terrorism a distant second. Bush-speak is repetitive manipulative sloganeering, or bumper-stickerisms, like “They hate our freedoms,” (one might suspect it is Bush/Gonzales/Cheney who hate our freedoms) or “The present situation is unacceptable” (referring to the situation he created himself by his support of illegal infiltration).
Liberals cannot even admit that it is “Muslim” terrorism not “international” terrorism. Muslims are now cosmopolitan “internationals” with their religion simply being an “element.”
PC sensitivity and open borders are the biggest threats right now to Western Civilization.
I guess the world isn’t going to stop just because Obama and Edwards say it has. I hope the electorate will look at stories like these - and I pray we won’t be seeing similar ones in Washington and NYC in the coming days - put aside its war-weariness and elect an adult.
The bomb sounds pretty crude by AQ standards (propane and nails?), so I’m betting this was home-brewed. Maybe local Shiites reacting to the Rushdie knighting? I know London is quite the Islamist hotbed, but what’s the ratio of Khomeneiists to Wahhabis?
This was clearly just some terrorist on their way to a picnic gathering of other like-minded Jihadis. They were going to grill some falafel, discuss optimizing personal injury with nail shrapnel and have a gay old time in Jolly old England…the land that welcomed them who they feel obliged to stab in the back.
DailyKOS post questioning the timing in 3… 2.. 1…
#2 JWS . Finally someone has the courage to say it .They only seek world domination so that we can live together in peace under sharia law.Poor misunderstood muslims.
Wait until the bleeding hearts here read your comment . Champions for the people who will not speak out against murder in the name of their own religion. I am not a Jihadist . Not that there is anything wrong with that .
Let’s see how many times we hear the word stereotype ?
BTW ,Before you all start educating us about the moderate muslims you might want to check with Brigitte Gabriel or read her book . She lived it .
We Americans watch London become Baghdad, and we learn our lessons well.
IMO this is one of the reasons the opposition to the shamnesty bill was so loud and proud–we refuse to live like this, in a constant state of terror from enemies within.
Not only is the left “questioning the timing” in order to posit one of their outrageous conspiracy theories, but several of them are making fun of conservatives for even reporting on this foiled attack.
They can’t have it both ways. They can’t say that either there is no War on Terror or that it’s overblown and then, when a genuine attack is foiled or actually happens, say that conservatives are blowing it out of proportion.
But then, I’m a relatively sane, rational person which means I don’t think like a lefty…
Thank God that this morning in England hundreds of parents, sons & daughters, brothers & sisters and friends & relations are safe at home right now instead of lined up in body bags somewhere waiting to be identified.
Thank God, and thank that ambulance crew.
You can see from the photo that the car bomb is parked directly in front of the door of the club. It sounds like the bomb misfired, spewing smoke instead of detonating. I suspect they got the fuse wrong, just like the follow-on Tube bombers got their fuses wrong on their bombs.
London has one camera for every 14 people, and the camera’s are throughout the city. MI 5/6 are also watching 2000 ‘youths’ suspected of terrorist capabilities. Yet NO ONE saw this car bomb coming. Lucky it didn’t go off. Thank God, the REAL God.
We in the US don’t have a fraction of the cameras, I don’t know if we have any jihadists under surveillance, the left wants to open the doors to Gitmo…
Analysis? We’re gonna get hit, hard if we don’t do more starting yesterday.
I’m afraid that until a prominent lefty or a family member of a Dem gets hurt, nothing will be done.
Pray.
“I’m afraid that until a prominent lefty or a family member of a Dem gets hurt, nothing will be done.”
If there is any justice in the world, they will be the only ones that get hit.
Since illegal aliens have no commitment to the USA, it will be interesting to see whether they run in the event of a major terrorist attack on US soil. Legal immigrants committed to the USA and would definitely support this country in event of an attack. Illegal Aliens have not such allegiance.
Now here we go again, some poor foreign worker was on his way to a construction site and his car broke down. Some over paranoid public servant saw the construction supplies and figured it was a good excuse for a front page splash on ” Terrorism “. Now this poor worker will lose his job because the supplies were needed to finish the job and on top of that he will be paraded on the front page of every newspaper as a terrorist costing him future employment opprotunities.
/sarcasm off
Just had to give the left wing viewpoint real quick. I echo the above thank GOD someone had their eyes open and stopped this.
Where is the third car bomb? And the fourth?
And where did the money come from that funded it all? Let me remind everyone that the $500K that funded Sep 11 came from Saudi Arabia.
I have to interject that I am a bit disturbed by the coverage of the failed bomb plot in England. No one was hurt, thank God, but there was another terrorsit atrocity yesterday which has been completely ignored by the media in North America and by the blogs. Islamists are not the only terrorists.
I work in Colombia. Before I ever came to this country a group of municipal councillors had been kidnapped by the FARC in the city of Cali. The twelve men had been held in captivity for over 5 years. Only sporadically did the families receive any information as to whether they were still alive.
Yesterday, the news came out that 11 of these guys had been killed. It appears that the FARC just murdered them. The FARC claims that they were killed in a “cross-fire”, but (at least so far as the armed forces is concerned) there were no actions in that department during the relevant time frame. Further, the FARC has not indicated where the murders took place, who they were fighting against (if there really was a “cross-fire”) and, most tellingly, they have not returned the bodies of the dead. The Colombian President has asked for an international forensic examination of the bodies to establish how they died, but the FARC won’t release the bodies. I suggest this is for obvious reasons.
All these victims were the loved parents, spouses and children of others. One woman had kept a daily diary,for 5 years, of all the things that happened in the family’s daily life. The idea was that her husband could read everything that he had missed. The FARC took that hope from her.
I just do not understand how atrocities like this can fly under the news (and, with respect blog) coverage. While it is true that the Islamists commit atrocities, they have no monopoly on them. The Colombian people have been living a nightmare of terrorism, from both left and right, since times long before 9/11.
Blaise, I don’t disagree that the FARC atrocities are worthy of attention. However, do you see FARC atrocities being exported around the world in the name of FARC? Local atrocities abound, but worldwide attention tends to focus on atrocities that have worldwide implications.
Do not worry fellow infidels here in America.
We are safe.
No one will be able to sneak into our country.
12 miles of fencing have now been completed on our southern border.
Of course 5 of that 12 miles is actually gates.
All the gates have on them:
1) Press one for Spanish (with a response of “Welcome Amigo”).
2) Press two for Arabic (with a response of “Welcome honored member of the Religion of Peace”).
3) Press two for English (with a response of “Go to Hell you damed bigoted nativist!”).
DRAT!
3) Press three for English (with a response of “Go to Hell you damed bigoted nativist!”).
PBoilermaker. Thanks for replying.
Even if spreading cocaine is not defined as an atrocity, and we leave aside the drugs which they export all over the world (Don´t forget that the FARC are little more than glorified drug traffickers)the FARC has its fingers in a lot of countries. For example, in Paraguay, where last year they murdered the daughter of an ex’President(she too had been kidnapped and held for many months). They are also now in Ecuador and of course in Venezuela. So, while perhaps they arent in Canada or the US, they are a multinational operation.
But, from a larger point of view, I maintain that a part of the reason that we in the ¨west¨are so unpopular is that we (through our media) seem to diminish the importance of ¨local¨atrocities. I´m a Canadian and we´re supposed to be the touchy-feely ones, but even on Canadian web-sites there is little about what happened here yesterday. I think that, to people here (and in other countries in which things happen) they think that we in the west only care if it happens to or threatens us.
I don´t know. I do know that 11 innocent people butchered by an outfit that is trying to get the Europeans to treat them as some sort of ¨national liberators¨should get some attention.
Oh, come on you guys. The cars were Jimmuh Carter’s. He was on his way to build some houses for some poor Brits.
He’s getting powerful old, so he forgot where he parked them …
OT
Next on the immigration front. Tuition breaks for illegals, but not your kids.
Well we had no choice
All you girls and boys
Makin all that noise
‘Cause we found new power
Well we can’t follow Bush
Can’t find a reason
If that don’t suit ya
That’s a drag
Bush’s is out for the summer
His Presidency’s will be out forever
Bush’s been blown to pieces
No more amnesty
No more crooks
No more Bush’s dirty looks
Well he got no class
And he got no principles
And we got no innocence anymore
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes with traitor
Bush is out for the summer
His Presidency’s out forever
Bush’s been blown to pieces
No more amnesty
No more crooks
No more Bush’s dirty looks
Out for the summer
Out till the fall
He might not even get back at all
Bush’s out for the summer
Bush’s out forever
Bush’s out with a fever
Bush’s out completely
HT: Alice Cooper
At some point, the civilized world’s countries will have to make a choice: Live under sharia law or outlaw islam (lower case intended) and deport muslims. We will have to come to terms with the fact that there is no negotiating with those who follow this “religion”. The next time you hear cair or any other “moderate” muslim explaining away their hatred or complaining about how the koran is being taken out of context, remember that that same koran instructs it’s followers to LIE if said lie is to it’s enemies…
London lost 25,000 people in the Blitz.
We know there is trouble in London, there are total creeps amongst us.
It sounds like a PC was a hero, diving into the car and disconnecting the cellphone.
God Bless the Metropolitan Police. And MI5.
We know these bastards are trying to kill us. I believe 200 threats have been stopped so far by the Met and MI5.
To Americans - take this as a warning. Let them in, let them go crazy, and they will try to bomb you.
I actually intended to go to Haymarket today to New Zealand House to book my ticket for CHristmas ($3000 round trip from London via LA, Fiji to NZ and back through Hong Kong, beat that !)
I know Tiger Tiger club - I believe it was an attempted hit against “Ladies Night” - their buddies convicted last year were also aiming at a big nightclub ( Ministry of Sound) and spoke about …”Lets kill these slags”.
The BBC continues to portray this incident as a “mystery”. BS. More BS as usual from the BBC. They descibe it as an “international incident”.
By whom ? The Sri Lankan rebels ? The closed-down IRA ? ETA from Spain ? Maybe Shining Path ?
We HERE know by 90% who it was. We will wait for the MET POLICE to advise us the details.
Ahh Summer in Londonstan, I can almost picture it and smell it, from over here.
Today the UK, tomorrow the USA. If anyone wants a good illustration of the United States in the future unless we crack down on immigration, you can’t do better than the UK: relentlessly sensitive and politically correct to those who would destroy them until the mission is de facto accomplished.
We’ll be next if we aren’t very, very careful, and take strong, extremely pro-active measures now.
Laree
Obviously the US is the prime target. That is why deaths in the US from “them” were hugely larger than in the UK so far.
It really does not help to scorn the UK. They did that in 1939 through 1941. We are all in this together.
(I am Aussie - my country also suffered, in Bali. Twice. Nightclubs are target, we are sinful.)
The question is will the Islamists strike in the US and screw up their buddies (the Democrats) chances in the 2008 election?
“I am sure a bit of appeasement will work, ..eh? Don’t want the car burning thing like the Frogs on this side on the Divide. LOL Did you say Croquet on Sunday? Wonderful. Another drinky, Fatima. “
@Blaise
Terrorist atrocities abound in many countries. This is the sad reality of the world we live in. I think the reason such atrocities get little coverage in the blogosphere and the media, is because most of the people writing the news are from the “west”.
As it stands, atrocities in Sri Lanka and South America are rarely reported. Why? Because they have little to no relevance to the average “westerner”. Drug cartels have been going at it for ages in south america. Once they start exporting their brand of violence to the “west”, you’ll see a lot more air time dedicated to it.
Is there anything that can be done? I don’t know. I’m not optimistic because the general public seems more interested in the latest happenings surrounding Paris Hilton/David Beckham/insert-celeb-here than they are about world issues.
Johninlondon,
It is called humor, and when my husband watched the coverage yesterday morning on Fox he said something I can’t repeat, my husband is in the US Army and the best way to describe what he said is this, the English are not being proactive enough. I see the reality of the situation, that has nothing to do with our solidarity, with our Allies.
About the South and Central American drug cartels not spreading violence in the west yet ?
Our border patrol agents are fighting them constantly on our soil right now. The agents are out gunned and understaffed .When they do get in a lucky shot they go to prison for it. Why no major news coverage ? Money or agendas ?
The national guard should step up , the border patrol should get whatever they need and our full support.They are an invading army and should be treated as such.
Hey feralcat on #3 you left out leave all your money at the gate then go to hell.
I pray this will be yet again another wakeup call to the west no matter what faith one professes. It seems the JFK fuel line plot left our attention much too soon. I am of the opinion that a “hard line” approach is needed to secure our borders and weed out suspected threats before they become reality. Let’s quit bending the constitution to protect the “rights” of these swine who intend us harm.